Pragmatist Epistemic Democracy: Evading Epistemological Skepticism

This paper begins from the question of whether there is a specifically normative justification of democracy that can rebut the claims of epistemological skeptics and proponents of what is often called “epistocracy”. To do this, it engages Peircean democratic theory (PD), a recent contribution to this literature. PD draws attention to the significance of Peircean (pragmatist) epistemology for democratic political philosophy and, in particular, to the possibility that democratic commitments to freedom of expression, association and political choice might give us epistemic reasons to support democracy even when we are unsure about the morality of the policies or quality of the decisions which it generates. In short, Peircean pragmatism claims to illuminate the epistemic dimensions of democratic government in ways that shore up its legitimacy, and improve political practice. The significance of this approach is wide. Potentially, it promises compelling reasons to affirm the legitimacy of democratic government even when we are most exasperated or repelled by our fellow citizens, and most disenchanted with democratic politics. PD also appears to imply that deliberative forms of democracy (DD) have a philosophical justification which is more robust and much less contentious than either its proponents or opponents suppose. In this manner, it promises to evade the criticisms of epistemological skeptics, by offering a normative epistemic justification that is not dependent on the truth-tracking outcomes of democratic procedures, while honouring the deep diversity and conflictual nature of people’s needs, interests and desires. This paper will, first, distinguish PD’s epistemic justification of democracy from existing attempts within DD. Second, it will then assess whether this, in fact, evades the criticisms of epistemological sceptics. This will serve as the basis of our larger project of assessing the capacity of PD to make a significant impact on contemporary democratic justification and epistemic practice.